Julie's Dream

FAMILIA!!!!!

 

Boy oh Boy am i excited to have this opportunity to email yal once again?? It was a week full of excitement and energy her in FLORIDA!! Aynsley i am so excited for you. Truly i can't describe or even put into words the excitement i have. I think back to when i was in your shoes.. waiting on a mission call. All you want to do is KNOW. I remember as i was waiting on my call i was reading in the book of mormon about Alma and him Baptizing hundreds of people in the waters of Mormon.. It made me think of my mission. It made me desire and want to do the same. Most importantly though it comforted me.. letting me know that if that was gods will for me then it would happen. If not then he would send me to another place maybe where i would only baptized 1 person but yet i would know thats where GOD wanted me to be just as he wanted Alma to be there preaching to all those people. SOOO as you read your scriptures this week pay close attention to those desires of your heart and what trigger your thoughts. That is how you might might MIGHT get a lil glance of where you COULD be headed ;)

 

Mission Work here in the vineyard of Florida is going strong!!! We had a rough crazy week full of excitement and craziness! Oh Wednesday we had our Zone Training and lets just say that Elder Tesch and I had a lot of fun!! We may or may not be known as the party animals :) We trained on being converted to our goals and also being converted to the things the Elder Kopischke taught us 2 weeks ago. It turned out to be a really good training and it actually led the zone to an amazing 8 baptisms this past weekend. It was soooo cool. A perfect start to a new month in march.. a 5 week month no less :) Our mission has had a goal of 175 baptisms in a month and we fall short every month. The closest we've ever came is like 164 and that was last march. SOO we got a lot of work to do but all the missionaries know that this coming march is the month!!! We pumped. Idk if i'm going to be here in ft laud for it with transfers coming up again in 1 week. It's crazy how fast time is flying by. Elder Webb will be home before you know it :)

 

Investigators are going well. Unfortunately we weren't able to have any baptisms this past week and that family we were supposed to baptize isnt quite ready... BUT they will be this weekend:) The mom just has to leave behind 1 more cigarette. After that, her as well as the 3 kids are ready :) Their amazing. Elder Tesch and i worked hard doing our BEST to help them this past week. We helped them in so many ways. Calling, texting, daily contact, encouragement, etc... list goes on and on. So we honestly felt like we did everything in our power to get them baptized this past weekend. BUT obviously long story short they didn't get baptized. That caused my companion and i to think and reflect on things that we can do EVEN more of to help this mom (Julie) to progress and stop smoking. After thinking and praying we found the solutions. 2 solutions that we haven't applied yet when it comes to HELPING our investigators. The first being to have a special fast for Julie to stop smoking. Not only us fasting but having them fast with us!!! Then secondly involving her with members:) Using member testimonies to solidify and help her stop smoking as well! We feel as though these are the perfect plans and exactly what her and the family need! After coming up with these plans we went over to their house after church on sunday and Julie told us of an amazing AMAZING experience or dream that she had saturday night!

( in order to help you understand better i'm going to back track a little bit. ) So on like Thursday or so we taught this family about the plan of salvation. Specifically focusing on the spirit world and how we do work in the temple for people there waiting on us. We felt really inspired and prompted to teach them about this because Julie had  brothers that were shot and killed years ago. Its been hard on the entire family and really sometimes they don't understand why it happened to them. It questions their faith sometimes. SOOO we figured what better way to tell this family that they can be BAPTIZED for their Uncles (or Brothers). Their family members that they love so much and would do anything for!!! It was a really really spiritual and powerful lesson. (Okay now that you know this part lets fast forward to this lesson sunday after church now) 

 

SO Sunday after church we go and we visit with this family! Immediately as we sit down Julie says Ovard and Tesch i have something to tell you!! We said okay and anxiously listened! She then began to tell us that last night (Saturday) she had a dream. A dream about her god mother inviting her to go to church with her. Julie said this was a miracle in the dream because the god mother was the biggest partier, crazy going person alive. She never ever wanted god or church in her life. So Julie was really suprised and she accepted to go to churh with her god mother. So they walk to church but as they walk she notices that the church they are going to is outside in the street. There is a lot of people and then she looks up at like the preacher and stuff and there was one of her brothers sitting there listening to her other brother preach to this multitude. He was preaching about the plan of salvation and how HE and HIS brother and MANY OTHERS were waiting for this multitude to go do the work for them in the temple. To go be baptized for them. Julie couldn't believe it! She was amazing. Shocked and confused. Then the dream goes on and the god mother HEEDS the counsel of her brother and goes and is baptized for herself to cleanse herself from sin.

WELL this is where the dream ends. Julie wakes up and is thinking a lot about this dream. She cant believe what happened. THEN THEN... you wont believe it.
She goes and gets on Facebook! She begins scrolling down news feeds and she sees a picture of her god mother in the domican republic, she is dressed in white and she was baptized earlier that morning!.... 

WHAT AN AMAZING STORY/DREAM RIGHT??? how incredible is this? Elder Tesch and i just looked at each other in shock. We couldn't believe how real it all was. We then looked at her straight in the eyes and said... Okay Julie so what did you learn from this dream that god gave you? what is he inviting you to prepare to do?? She smiled put her head down and said.... I KNOW.. I KNOW WHAT I NEED TO DO. I NEED TO BE BAPTIZED!!! Immediately there after we presented the plans tesch and i had come up with earlier that day about the special fast that we would have to help her stop smoking so she can be baptized....

 

It was honestly another testimony builder for me. To know that god is aware of each individual need. HE KNOWS. He will make things happen in our investigators lives if we show them sincere love interest and support! I learned a lot from this experience and this past week. Lessons that never in my life will i forget! 

 

I love you all a lot and look up to you a lot :) Always know that god is always there for you to look up to! HE KNOWS YOU BEST!!!!

 

Love ELDER OVARD

 

p.s. i hope the whole dream made sense. It's kinda hard to write in words hahaha love ya

Elder Kopishchke Training & Cirio's Baptism

My family!!!!!!!!!!!!

Una semana mas ya paso en los libros!!!!! no se si tiene sentido en espanol? haha

ANOTHER ONE DOWN!! I can't believe it has already come and gone. What a blessing it was to be a missionary this past week. Elder Kopischke came and toured our mission this past week and it was so much fun. I got to be with him thursday from 10am-4pm and then friday from 8am-1pm. What an intelligent smart man he is. Honestly like ALL his trainings were set up in a Question/Anwser format. He would take a question and then expound on it and share doctrine from the scriptures and pmg like it was nobodies business. He would anwser the question but at the same time provide like 10 different solutions or anwsers! It was soooo inspiring and such a learing experience!! My talk that i gave haha was good i guess! It was so much fun to be able to stand before half the mission and tell them of an experience i had. I did end up telling them about novelty down in homestead. I as well as 2 others shared their stories too. After our stories Elder Kopischke was going in to his training. SOOOOO he started out by reviewing our testimonies/stories. He went through each one and said what he learned and then opened it up to the missionaries for them to share what they learned. It was soooo awesome to see the different things people learned from our experiences. It was awesome!!

Want to know something else thats awesome??? GOD IS SOOOOO GOOD!!!!! you wont believe it but we baptized a man named CIRO this past weekend :) He is amazing!!!!! IT was such a miracle and something that honestly came straight from gods tender mercies! Ciro was a member referral that bro rodriguez brought to church last week. At church last week we set up an appointment with him. Well our first lesson we helped him to recognized the feelings that he felt at church and how he was feeling of gods love and spirit. Immediately after we found out that the biggest thing that Ciro desired was to be able to have more understand and knowledge. SOOO we taught him about the holy ghost. We told him how by having this constant companionship of the H.G. he can know all things. We then explained that the ONLY way to receive this H.G. as a companionship is by being BAPTIZED. We then invited him to be baptized right there at the members home after the member had just got done baring powerful testimony! Ciro was a lil scared to accept but he knew it was right and he knew its what he needed to do. WELL, thats when the fun began. We taught Ciro that night and then one other night we taught him about the restoration. After that the only other day he could meet with us was on sunday because he had work the other days. SOOOO how in the world were we going to teach him all the commandments and get his Baptism interview done before church on sunday?? Long story short God made it happen. Ciro made it happen! We talked with Ciro's member friend bro rodriguez over the phone a little bit asking him if he could foresee any problems with the WofW or the LofC. We knew that it wasn't going to be possible to baptize Ciro if he had problems with these things going in to sunday when he was supposed to be baptized. The member told us NO he didn't have any problems with that stuff as far as he knew! SOOO with Faith and Hope with went about everything as though Ciro was getting baptized on sunday!! Sunday morning an hour before church started we taught Ciro the LofC, WofW and Tithing.... FAmily I can honestly say and testify to you that this man was prepared. He didn't have a problem with anything. He was 100 percent clean and worthy. He wanted to be baptized really bad and he was sooooo ready so WHY WAIT?? just as it teaches us in mosiah 18: 8-10. The last thing Ciro needed was a baptism interview. SOO during gospel principles class we pulled him out for a minute and the District Leader of the spanish ward interviewed Ciro and BAMMM game over last batter out!!!!! CIRO WAS BAPTIZED!!! What joy and happiness feeled my heart to have seen god perform this miracle before my eyes even again! MIracles just dont stop ever.... as long as we are obedient... diligent... urgent.... and truly sacrifice our will to line it with gods!! I love this work soooo sooo much!!!!!

 

Another quick story...  So our battery in our car stopped working saturday night. SOOO long story short we had to get jumped by one of our investigators.. Well sunday morning, church time rolled around and sure enough it didn't start again so we got jumped by the sister misisonaries. Then after church it didn't work so we got jumped again, etc...... SO long story short we were carless sunday night. We didn't know what to do. We couldn've rode bikes but by the time we would get where we needed to be we would have to turn right around and come home due to curfew! SOO we decided just to be diligent and show our faith. We decided to walk down the street and just go and harvest a complex. We walked and began knocked these doors. WELL god knew we needed to be there and he led us to that complex. We knocked into a lady that immediately accepted a prayer from us. She said i would love a prayer from jesus christ. We said a prayer with her. THEN after the prayer she said.. I don't have much time right now but i want you guys to come back!! WE accepted and said we would love to. She then said " ELDERS i was baptized into the mormon church 13 years ago. I haven't been back since just because i didn't know there was one this close to us!" Soo we showed her the address to the church and told her we would stop by the next day to talk more. She THEN before we left said okay good you can meet my daughter tomorrow... WE HESITATED AND SAID WAIT YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER?? HOW OLD? That is when she stated... 11 years old!!!! hahaha oh yes!!!!! The tender mercies and blessings of God!! God was allowing us to not only reactivate this lost daughter but to ALSO baptized her daughter :) We are going to meet with them tonight :)

 

What blessings come when we do what god asks! Family i love you all so much. I'm grateful to be a full time missionary right now in my life! It is the best journey, roller coaster that i could ever ride!! Love you all a lot!! Keep being amazing. Keep learning and progressing in this game of life! Its the best! :)

 

ELDER OVARD

 

p.s. this week we are looking at a family of 4 getting baptized but ohhhhhh i love them sooooo sooooo much. I'll tell you about them next week!!!!! They are from the dominican republic and they are hilarious!!!! GODS GOOD!

Love you

Elder Kopichke's Mini Mission Conference

Boy oh Boy!!!! COMO PASA LA VIDA????

Another week bites the dust and the miracles of god continue!! I love being a missionary soooo much! It's the best thing on earth! Everyday just to wake up and go. GO GO GO!!!! What better calling or blessing could i ever ask for in my life! Often times i ask myself 'Why me Father? Of all the amazing people in the world why do you choose to bless me so much god?' It's a question that has been on my mind a lot lately and a question that i have been studying and pondering a lot about! Ultimately my thoughts and studies have all led me back to this lil saying "When you give you receive, when you receive you DONT STOP giving...." It may be a lil confusing on paper but to me in my crazy mind it makes perfect sense! I love the mercy of god. The goodness of god. He wants us to be happy. He wants us to succeed. He wants to give us the blessings. SOOO why not accept these things? If god wants us to be happy then we must put it into the equation. (We must give to receive) So if we want to accept the blessing of happiness from god then we must FIRST help others to be happy. Make others day brighter. Help them to smile. Help them to enjoy being a child of god. When we do this then we Receive the blessing of Happiness from god. We accept this gift from him. Then REMEMBER REMEMBER once we have received this gift we must continually give it... if we don't we WILL lose it! Dont stop the service. Don't stop being as our Savior Jesus Christ!!

Okay okay sorry for the tangent haha I loved that though and i loved the inspiration god was able to give me as i prayed studied and pondered on these questions? 'Why me father?

This past week here in HOLLYWOOD was beautiful!!!! God was sooooo good to us! We were able to unite more of gods families together through the waters of baptism!! Back when i was with Elder Hall we baptized Nichole (mom) and Jamilla (cousin). For weeks and weeks we were working with the rest of their family. Specifically Nicholes kids Maleek (15) and Kiera (22)! They both are amazing with the greatest intentions on the face of the planet. Kiera really wants to be baptized but she works every sunday and is still fighting with her boss to get it changed haha Maleek was always just waiting for her sister to get work off so she could come with us all to church. Well weeks went by and maleek never came. Weeks and weeks. We continued to work with this family helping them and pushing them to trust in god. Well Maleek finally came to church. He met some friends and now he plays ball and stuff with them on tuesday nights. Well a week later he was baptized (yesterday)!!!!!!!!!!!!!! His baptism was awesome! He told us he felt soooo good and pure. He always just wanted to be pure so that he could always be with god. He told us his baptism was greater then he had expected. Afterwards he said... "Dang my sis needs this" haha :) What a blessing and a miracles it was to see him finally go out of his comfort zone and come to church without his sister. Now GOD has allowed us to baptized 3 of these members in the family and now we are just working towards kiera and helping her to take this step as well :) With god all things are possible and it WILL happen :)

So i'm not sure if i told you all yet but Elder Kopichke of the seventy is coming to tour our mission this week. We are having like a mini mission conference haha half of the mission will gather together with him one day for a conference and the other half of the mission the next day. I am extremely excited. The other day i received a phone call from president though. President Anderson said "Elder Ovard i have been praying a lot and really thinking of people that could give talks/testimonies during our mini mission conferences with Elder Kopichke. Your name Elder Ovard keeps coming to my mind and so i would like for you to give a testimony of a miracle or a mission experience that has changed your life. Will you do that for me in our conference?" AHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOO i thought hahahahhaha i willingly without hesitation accepted. As i look forward to this opportunity i give thanks to god. I really do. I'm not much of a public speaker however it has gotten better since being in the mission field haha but it should be fun!! 

 

Also as far as the temple goes :) YEAHHHHH so we all in our entire mission we be involved with it from what i've heard. President says something like this shouldn't pass without letting every missionary be a part of it! I'm excited. I have been praying and hoping i just stay here in the Ft. Laud Zone though for one more transfer after this one. The missionaries here in the Ft Laud Zone will probably be involved with the temple A LOT! Sooo i'm hoping i will get to stay here!! It would be so much fun! The mission is sooo excited about the temple though. We all talk with our investigators and recent converts about it. There is projected to be like 100,000 people if not more walking through the temple during that time :) SOOO EXCITING! 

 

Well I love you all! God is real and he loves each and every ONE of us!

 

Love ELDER OVARD

Praying for my family!

FAMILY FAMILY FAMILY!!!!!

Well the spirit is real and the spirit is strong even today :) You will not believe the wonderful experience that just happened to me!! So this past week i had been praying and praying for dad. That he might be able to score that job with SWIG! I caught myself evening praying too much for it haha It was like every prayer i would include it in there just because i want dad to be surrounded by good people while he works! WELL.... Today i got onto my email.. i immediately opened up dads email. I read and read and BAMMMM there it was. Dad says "I guess the big news for me is that I am starting a new job tomorrow!" God had given me the miracle i had been asking for! Immediately as i read i began to cry a little bit. I was tearing up a bit with joy in my heart. A joy that only comes from the goodness of god. A joy that caused me to feel LOVED by my heavenly father. I then offered up a prayer of gratitude, thanking god for the blessing he had bestowed upon me and my father. I then in my prayer stated... "God thank thee, if thou needest anything of me, please put opportunities in my path so that i can give thee thanks!" 

Family thats when something AMAZING happened. Literally 2 min after i prayed, i received a phone call. From a sister in the ward that called as she cried telling me that her son was in the ER and they were waiting on test results and she was wondering if we could give her son a blessing that everything will be okay. I then asked okay when would you like us to come? She said NOW!! Well, as each of you know today is our pday- we were in the middle of emailing and soooo SOOOO very badly i just wanted to tell her okay we will be there in an hour or two after were done emailing.. but then i realized. I realized that, the thought of procrastinating and waiting did not come from god. I realized that was the adversary convincing me that my personal desires and wants, were more important then using the power of the priesthood and the power of service! Then immediately the spirit took me back to my prayer.. The words that i had stated... "God thank thee, if thou needest of me, please put opportunities in my path so that i can give thee thanks!" Once the spirit humbled me and reminded me of the promise i had just made with god, immediately without hesitation i told this sister in our ward. Okay we will be there in 5 minutes, and off we went! 

Well family as i get back here to the computer now. Only 30 minutes later, It causes me to ponder and reflect on the experience i just had. Ponder and reflect on the power of god. The power of prayer. The power of asking. The power of Service. I'm sooooo very grateful to see these little miracles happening in my life. To see god granting me DIRECT blessings for the effort i am giving! Family i want to invite each of you this week to look for opportunities to give thanks and give service to others. Pray for these opportunities and I promise you god WILL put them in your path just as he did in mine!!!

Well what a way to start out a weekly email huh!! haha Okay fam how is life??  Mine is going soooooooo great!!!! Time is still cruising by but other then that it's going good. So as you all know transfers were this past week. My new companions name is ELDER TESCH. He is from Roy Utah and boy oh boy he is a kick. This is the first transfer for him as a zone leader and he is trippin haha I love being his companion though. We get along really well! We have been planning for our zone a lot and have some incredible ideas and things planned out. We WILL get 30 baptisms here in the month on february as a zone and were excited about it. As you all know the temple is coming and it will be in our zone SOO our theme to the month is #LookToTheTemple. We are excited. We also cut out a huge temple out of paper and then made it into a puzzle. So for each baptism we have we connect a piece of the puzzle. This will help us all stay focused on our goal and focused on the purpose that we've promise god this month. WERE SO PUMPED!!!!! Also this past week i was able to go on exchanges with the AP's!! There are amazing haha i always love being with them! One of them Elder O'neil came with me in my area here in hollywood. We had soooo much success. Family after family. God was sooooo good to us! Truly though we were amazed. It was fun to be able to have a great day like that!

Also this week something special happened. There was a ward/stake/area broadcast from orlando. Elder perry was there and boy oh boy he was a kick. That man has sooo much enthusiasm towards the gospel and towards missionary work it's not even funny! I love him! He inspired me to be even better!

Well family i don't know if i have much more to tell you for the week. Oh wait I do.... :) So this transfer is only a 5 week transfer. So i may only be with Elder Tesch for 5 weeks who knows. Also i did kinda have a chance to talk with pres anderson about when i should be headed home and he said to just have ayns go about everything and we'll make it work! He says it's just hard telling me when i'm going home just because it'll be a new mission president. When i'm in my interview with him though i'll ask and we will be able to set a date i think. 

Anyways I love you all soooo very much! Keep being strong followers of christ! I love you and may god be with you!!! "When you do this NO longer is it your life, but it BECOMES a life as the Saviors!!!"

LOVE ELDER OVARD

Be Christlike

WAZZUP FAmily!!!!!!!!

Wowsers what a crazy week it was here in FLORIDA!!!! Do I have another amazing story to tell you or what :) BUT first lets start with all the housekeeping business!! So this past week I didn't have a chance to talk with president about when I would be coming home. It's really hard that man is always so busy and doing his best. I really was trying to find out for you all this past week. BUT it came down to this solution. President Anderson wont even be here when I go, and during my last interview he told me I could go home whenever I needed. SOOOO honestly like I can talk to him but what I would say is just tell Ayns to put her availability date for whenever she wants and I'll make sure i make it home in time :) I could talk with him tomorrow probably at transfer meeting! That would probably be the best time for me to do it! But that will force yal to wait another week to find out. SO to conclude all this.. either Ayns puts her date for when she wants and I'll make sure I'm home. Or else i'll talk with president and then let you know next week :)

 

More Housekeeping.... So this past weekend was stake conference! GUESS WHO I SAW AGAIN!!! haha I saw the Steeles. They walked into stake conference almost expecting to see me this time haha it was fun though. Drew and I didnt have the chance to talk last time I saw them but this time we got to talk for a bit. They are truly amazing! President and Sister Anderson told me that they talked with sister Frei. They said it was so much fun talking with her haha Small world right!! It was funny! The Steeles really want me over for dinner so this transfer im going to try and make it all work out. When I go on exchanges with the DL I can probably swing something ;)

Also you will not believe it but do you remember Elder Millett? My second son? I am pretty positive that he went home yesterday :( His health problems i guess got the best of him. I sure hope and pray though that he can get well and get back out here in the mission field. Its soooo dang fun and I wouldn't want him to miss out of the rest of his mission. This past week I went on an Exchange with my other son Elder White. He is serving here in my zone and we did an exchange with them to help em out a bit!! He is a stud haha it brought back soooo many good memories! I love him!!

 

Dad I love the story about Waddoups hahaha he is always emailing me and it's fun to hear his testimony and excitement about ball combined together haha he's an amazing example!!

ALRIGHTY... I think thats it for the housekeeping. Now we are onto the good stuff!!!!! 

SOOO you will not believe it but once again GOD blessed us tremendously this past week. Elder Loucks and I were able to help God baptize a man named Kevin Tinney. This wasn't just another baptism or another man haha this man is AMAZING!!!! straight up!! To say the least he basically Baptized himself. In all honesty!! He is about a 60 yr old retired banker. He played the stocks and did a few different things and he seems to be well off. His wife is also a doctor or something at the hospital. So, right now Kevin works at bass pro shop. He works there just for fun, it's more of a hobby but at the same time he's making a lil extra cash! Anyways... (plzz forgive me this story will be hard to explain haha) Kevin works at bass pro with another member. For a long long time this member was always talking to Kevin about church. Kevin loves god and always has wanted to become a better person. That was the thing striving and pushing him the most. He wanted to become like christ or in other words DO WHAT CHRIST WOULD DO! Well one day the member gave Kevin a Book of Mormon and our phone number. Well... a month later Kevin calls us up. This was back when I was with Elder Hall by the way. Kevin calls us up and says he wants to meet us and talk at the church. We said okay and set up an appointment. Keep in mind when he called us we knew nothing about him. We didn't even know a member had been talking with him. SOOO We met with Kevin at the church that very first day and he just starts talking and talking. This wasn't a normal talk... It was like a professor in college that just rambles on and on because they are SOOOO smart. He honestly blew elder hall and i away. He was a genius! Anyways after proving a point to us about how smart he is... He then said okay guys. I'm not here to prove you wrong or to ask you questions and play stump the schwab. I am here because I want to be surrounded by good people. THE MORMONS are the best people that i see in this world and I want to be one of them. He then goes on to explain that he was in Ether in his reading the book of mormon. He then tells us that he was at a Stake conference months ago when Elder Dallin H Oaks was here. List goes on and on. Well family, the 3rd visit with this man he hands (Elder Loucks, now) a 50 dollar bill, then he looks at me and hands me a 50 dollar bill. He says guys, I really admire you and look up to you for the good work you do to this world and for the people here in florida. I want you to take this money and use it for gas or whatever your needs be. Use it to serve and help those around you. Put it in the missionary fund. haha So we then showed him how to fill out a tithing slip and mark missionary funds on it. We put the money in the envelope and then gave it to the bishop for him on sunday. That same day he asked us about the church website. LDS.ORG. He asked about ensigns, mormon messages and even Quad scriptures. Well the 4th visit he had told us he had subscribed to the ensign magazine. He told us that he had bought 3 Quads. One for himself and then 2 to give to us. He says I don't care if you keep the quads or if you give them to another person but whatever you do with them... PLEASE PLEASE don't give me the credit. (keep in mind these are like the leather most expensive quads) ANYWAYS family you get the point. This man was elect. This man wants to be christlike. He wants to be surrounded by Gods children that do right. We didn't teach him anything. He taught himself. We met with him once a week for 6 weeks. He would read the pamplets, websites, book of mormon, D&C and Pearl of G.P. (which he is now done with both), the list goes on and on. Well family he was baptized on Sunday! What a special amazing baptism it was! We love Kevin SOOO much! He has changed my life and set such an example for me! To Be as the Savior would be. Do as the Savior would do. Think as the Savior would think. AND NOW share as the Savior would share. Kevin is currently sharing the gospel with his wife Robin. She came to his baptism and now tonight Kevin is taking us out to dinner with his wife Robin. A way for us to talk with her about our believes and what not. Robin is a practicing Jew but Kevin said her heart is as easy to break as his when it comes to doing good and being around good people!! We are excited and can't wait to teach Robin!!

 

FAmily I want each of us to learn from this man. Learn the BEAUTY of being good. Doing good. We each can do it. We each know how. Lets go and do it now! Plzz focus on being christlike this week and for the rest of your lives! I will always and forever remember this man. The man that helped me to understand more of what it meant to have pure love for others!! 

 

I love you all and say these things in the name of Jesus Christ amen!!

 

Elder Ovard!!!  

J.D Houlton

FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!

 

Una semana mas YA PASO!!!!! I tell ya what man.... It's not getting any slower haha transfers are coming up next week and so I will be losing Elder Loucks. He is headed back to Morgan UT. It's been fun with him though and we've seen some miracles before our eyes that's for sure!!! 

This past week we saw another amazing miracle!!!!! We were able to baptize J.D. Houlton!! He's an amazing guy! Funny story. So like 3 weeks ago we were walking down the street and there was a big family all gathered together. We walked over to them and said a prayer with them. I'm about positive they were all drunk but hey it was a prayer sent from god so hopefully it touched them in some way. They weren't really feeling of the spirit at all though because they were drunk. SOO we tried and tried and it came time that we had to just leave them with a mormon.org card and move on. WELL family during this process. Right as we got ready to say the prayer with this crazy family a man walked over to the edge of the grass up along the fence. He just stood there waiting and waiting. After the prayer we looked up and he was still over there. He was a man with a Big Big Beard and in all honestly a man that kinda looked scary a bit. WELL after we finished everything with this family my companion and I begin to walk off towards this guy with the beard that had been waiting. As we approached his direction, he walked over to us and said. "Hey guys I don't want you coming over here to this house or neighborhood anymore. The people around here are crazy and the cops are always here" We thanked him for warning us and looking out for us and then we had the prompting to share a prayer with him as well. So I looked over at my companion and then this man and said "Hey can we say a prayer with you that comes from God? You helped us now the least we can do for you is offer a prayer for ya!" He said sure! He told us his name which was J.D. Houlton. Then we said the prayer. Afterwards we said how you feel man? He said amazing. We testified told him that was the spirit of God then we invited him to follow those promptings by being baptized just like Jesus Christ was. J.D. looked at us straight in the eyes and said, "I want to, but i can't. I'm a SINNER!" We told him that Jesus Christ died for him and will give him the strength to become sin free. He smiled and with joy and hope in his eyes he said.. yes elders I'll try and do my best to prepared to be baptized on Jan 21st!! WELL family I was a witness of this man. Literally changing his entire life for the better in 3 weeks. Changing it to become more like Christ. He went from smoking 3 packs of cigs a day to now, as of Friday last week smoking ZERO!!! He did it! He stopped! God gave him the power and the strength. The scripture that kept him going the entire way was Alma 7:15 which talks about literally allowing Jesus Christ to remove the bands of sin from us. It was a blessing and a miracle to see J.D. baptized and confirmed into the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints!!! #GodisGood :)

 

Also another extremely funny story that happened this past week:

I was on a split with a member. We went and visited a less active older lady that hasn't been to church in a good lil minute. So we go see her. We get there say a prayer with her and then she begins asking me question about where i'm from and stuff. I say St. George UT. Then as I look at her face.. A tear slid down her cheek. The member and I looked at her and said whats wrong. She then said I went to school at DIXIE in St. George UT and I love it there. Immediately we connected and began talking about St Geezy haha Then long story short she said "Look I'll prove it to you", she then went into her closet and pulled out a yearbook from like 1963. As I flipped through the pages I recognized a few of the people. They were people that are back in my home ward. haha it Iwas funny asking her about them. Then as the member and i flipped through some more pages we came across the basketball sports page... we looked at it then the member was like NO WAY.... he points.... and there he was ELDER JEFFREY R HOLLAND of the 12 in a basketball jersey!!!! hahaha oh boy it was hilarious to see. Then we flipped over to the next page and.... there he was AGAIN.. this time VOTED MOST PREFERRED MAN of the school hahaha all the ladies wanted him!! :) I guess you couldn't expect anything different though right... I mean, he is an apostle of the Lord!!!!!! :) Lol How funny is that though? haha What a small world it truly is!!! 

 

Well Family that is about it for this week :) I am so very blessed and so very grateful to be serving a mission. Aynsley it will be the best decision of your life. It'll be hard but SOOO WORTH IT! I promise. Keep praying. Keep going with it! You'll know it's right by the feelings you get when you fill out the paperwork! It's truly has changed my life though and helped me to grow up :) Love you a lot!! BWEEZ and TLANG happy BDAYS haha wow i swear it was like yesterday i was sending yal hats from miami saying happy bday to ya haha WAIT that was a year ago. It's so crazy. I love you both though and glad that your one year older and wiser too :) 

 

Have an amazing week! Siga trabajando duro en todo lo que estan haciendo. Yo les prometo que dios les bendicira mucho y que el siempre esta alli alado de ustedes. Andando consigo cada paso que toman :) Los Quiero MUCHISIMO!!!

 

Love ELDER OVARD

 

                                                       J.D. Houlton's baptism!

 

 

                                          Studying with the sisters in Hollywood!

Javon Sanders

FAMILIA!~!!!!

 

Una semana mas ya paso en los libros !!!  WAZZUP!!!!! haha Wow What a week! I am soooo very grateful to have a computer in my hands today! I have soooo much gratitude to give yal and also to God :) First and foremost yals are the best! Thanks for letters cards everything you do for me! It means a lot and I know that the harder the work the more blessed you are. That alone helps me push myself at times!! So thanks :) Secondly, God is GOOD! Once again God has placed one of his beloved children in my path!! This past week we had 1 baptism. His name is JAVON SANDERS. Javon is this black man thats like 25 yrs old and lets just say he's a stud. He got outta jail like a month ago and has had desires to better the quality of his life ever since. We met him like a week after he got out. He came to church he's been living the commandments and everything.  He even will go around his house telling people that their sinning when they drink or smoke haha He's so funny! Anyways he came to church yesterday and got baptized. He has a tattoo right in between his eyes! To a lot of peple he looks scary, but man oh man he's chill! Funny thing though. There at church there is this cute fairly young black girl that is single. She has 2 kids just like Javon. WELL, this young balck girl is already a member. When she found out Javon was getting baptized she stood around to watch. Sooo after the baptism we look at Javon as he is checking out this member. Javon turns his head and talks to a different member. Then we look over at this young single black sister in the ward as SHE BEGINS checking out Javon. Shocked but yet excited we look at Javon and say" Hey man what you think? You should go talk to her man?" hahaha all he does is SMILES with a big ol grin on his face!! He is like yeahhh shes cute. And shes a Mormon. And she likes God.  hahaha "match maker match maker make me a match" It's going to happen. We then committed him to come to church every sunday after that. We said, "So Javon if you want to get that girl then you gotta come to church ERRRRRR sunday to talk with her and show her you want to be in a family of God." He smiled once again and said I'll be HERE!!!" haha yeahhhh

 

This past week we met a family from the Dominican Republic... #BASEBALL. They have like 4 kids and all play ball. I'm sooooooo pumped to go and teach them! They were awesome! Finally I find some people that love baseball haha I told them that when I come back we needa play catch and stuff so they should be planning on it :) Ill keep you update though! Im PUMPED!!!

 

What a blessing it was though to see Javon get baptized! I loved it because throughout the week that was my focus. To help the individual become converted. Making sure the lessons and plans everything I did was focused on them. Just by doing that I was able to see a miracle. Not only the miracle of Javon getting baptized but we found new cool people and we just are seeing a lot of success in our area once again! I feel extremely good about it!!

Also this past week i was able to go on an exchange with the AP's!! We had so much fun! haha  Those elders are amazing! I love them! Then also this past week we had a meeting with president Anderson. All the Zone Leaders and District Leaders came together. It was soooo cool. President Anderson told us that Elder Richardson will be our new mission president. That was really weird. Also he told us the temple info. It should be done here soon they are having the open house in like March and aApril and then the dedication in May I believe :) I'm extremely excited and grateful I get to be here for all that !!!

 

Other then that the Zone is still doing great! We are seeing lots of miracles! Our goal is 30 this month and we are sitting at a solid 8 right now. We need 11 each week to finish out January!! We can do it though! This week we have zone training. So that means we are really busy planning everything out once again. It should be really good though and Elder Loucks and I are excited about it. Elder Loucks goes home on like the 30th so he wants his last training to be boss! We will make it happen :)

 

Love you family and keep up the great work! TOGETHER WE CAN TOGETHER WE WILL!!!

 

Love ELDER OVARD

 

 Javon Sanders Baptism!